Paul Rae

This short book purports to examine the intersection of theatre and human rights. Much theatre is devoted to human rights issues, whether intentionally or an artifact of the story being told, so there is a rich body of work to glean from. The problem is, the book is convoluted and messy. Yes, he talks (some) about human rights; yes, he talks (some) about theatre; yes, he does talk about their overlap. But his thesis gets lost in the rambling verbiage (something I didn't expect in a book this show more short). If I were going to try to guess about his thesis, it would be this: that doing theatre about human rights is in itself a violation of human rights, and in fact, doing theatre at all is a violation of human rights. If that is his thesis, he didn't do a good job defending it. If his thesis is something else, he did an even worse job defending it. If you want to know about the intersection of theatre and human rights, I would suggest finding another resource, even if it will take you longer to read. show less